The wife of Cameroon Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali was among several people kidnapped by Boko Haram militants, who attacked Kolofata, a town on the country’s Far North Region near Nigeria.

Colonel Felix Nji Formekong said, “The situation is very critical here now, and as I am talking to you Boko Haram elements are still in Kilofata town in a clash with our soldiers,” Reuters reports.

Formekong said, “Some of them have already taken away the wife of Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali and her house help while the bodyguards of the Vice Prime Minister succeeded in taking him out of town to Mora.”